On Wednesday, August 23, 2006, the San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA) restituted a painting that depicts The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden to U.S. Customs Officials who transfered the artwork to Mexican government officials. The painting, which the Museum purchased in early 2001 from a Mexico City dealer, was determined to have been stolen from a small church in Hidalgo, Mexico, through an investigation carried out by the U.S. Department of Justice in conjunction with Mexican government officials. The Museum has already been reimbursed for the full purchase price of the object by the Mexico City–based art dealer who sold the Expulsion to SDMA.

In October 2004, Mexican federal government representatives, using official channels, informed SDMA that they were actively investigating circumstances surrounding the theft of an 18th-century painting, one of three religious objects apparently taken from a church in San Juan Tepemazalco in the State of Hidalgo, Mexico, in early 2000. U.S. Customs Officials, working in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney's Office, were asked to determine if a painting of a similar description purchased by SDMA was one of these stolen objects. Pursuant to a mutual Assistance Treaty between the two governments, the U.S. Attorney's Office and SDMA fully cooperated in the investigation.

In early December 2004, the Museum's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to restitute the painting to Mexican government officials and offered to have Expulsion restored at the Museum's expense before returning it to the appropriate parties in Mexico. Such restoration would have mitigated harm done by the art thieves at the time that it was taken from the small church of San Juan Tepemazalco. (The Museum's offer was declined.) After it was proven to the Museum's satisfaction that Expulsion was indeed the same painting that was taken from the church, the artwork was deaccessioned from SDMA's permanent collection in June 2005.

"We are pleased to have this matter resolved and are grateful for the professionalism and cooperative spirit on the part of officials from the U.S. Department of Justice," states the Museum's executive director, Derrick Cartwright. "Safeguarding national patrimony is one of the most critical and complex issues in the art world of our time. Theft of cultural property, irrespective of its monetary value, is a deeply troubling fact facing all museums today. Doing the right thing in this instance was the obvious course of action for the San Diego Museum of Art."

At the time of the painting's purchase, SDMA followed existing professional guidelines in researching this work of art. An expert in Colonial Latin American painting advised on the acquisition, and the dealer-provided provenance was reviewed before the acquisition took place. Later in 2002, while further researching the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden in preparation for its publication in a forthcoming collection catalogue, museum staff members discovered discrepancies in the provenance record on file. At that time, staff wrote to the Special Cultural Center of the State of Hidalgo seeking photographic documentation. It was this correspondence generated by SDMA, and written on its own initiative, that evidently led the Mexican government to institute an inquiry about the painting through its established treaty protocols. Upon notification of the nature of this investigation in mid-October 2004, SDMA immediately provided all known facts to both governments.

The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden was not on display in the galleries when SDMA was notified of the investigation in fall 2004, nor has it been on display since. The Museum, however, continued to safeguard the painting until the logistics of its return through the proper government authorities could be determined.

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